“Ruth knew Michael.”
Hearing my husband’s name in David’s voice sent a cold wave through me.
Michael had been gone for four years.
We had shared thirty-nine years of marriage.
He had never once mentioned a woman named Ruth.
“How did she know him?”
David gestured toward an empty table in the corner of the courtyard.
“You should sit down.”
“No.”
“Eleanor, please.”
“I asked you a question.”
He looked around the courtyard.
“They met here.”
“In this restaurant?”
“Yes.”
“In Malta?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Thirty-two years ago.”
A short laugh escaped me, but there was no humor in it.
“Michael never came to Malta.”
David said nothing.
That silence again.
I began remembering every business trip Michael had taken during our marriage.
The conferences.
The delayed flights.
The weeks he spent traveling through Europe when Rebecca was nine.
He had returned from one of those trips carrying a small glass dolphin for her and a silver bracelet for me.
I still owned the bracelet.
I had worn it only a month earlier.
“You told me you had never been to this restaurant,” I said.
“I know.”
